Outline of the character 永, showing stroke order. This character has eight different types of strokes.

Here, the order of the strokes making up 永 is shown by the shade, going from black to red.

Strokes one by one

This animation also makes the direction of the strokes clear.

Stroke order (Chinese: 筆順 bǐshùn; Japanese: 筆順 hitsujun or 書き順 kaki-jun) refers to the way in which Chinese characters are written. The stroke order of a character gives the order and direction in which the brush strokes, or simply "strokes", are written. I typed it in MS Word using MS Biaokaiti, then outline it File links The following pages link to this file: Eight Principles of Yong Categories: GFDL images ... I typed it in MS Word using MS Biaokaiti, then outline it File links The following pages link to this file: Eight Principles of Yong Categories: GFDL images ... Image File history File links æ°¸-order. ... Image File history File links æ°¸-order. ... 漢字 / 汉字 Chinese character in Hànzì, kanji, hanja. ...

Chinese characters are used in various forms in modern Chinese languages, Japanese, and, in South Korea, for Korean. They are known as hànzì in Mandarin, kanji in Japanese, and hanja or hanmun in Korean. Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... Standard Mandarin is the official Chinese spoken language used by the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and Singapore. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji Kanji (Japanese:  ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名), and the Hindu-Arabic numerals. ... It has been suggested that Sino-Korean be merged into this article or section. ...

Chinese characters are believed to have originally been brush-written on perishable materials such as bamboo or wood slats, which could then be bound together like Venetian blinds, and rolled for storage. Examples of such books have been found dating to the late Zhou dynasty. It is a common misconception that Chinese characters were originally carved; this stems from the fact that the earliest extant examples are in carved form on the so-called oracle bones, scapulomancy fortune-telling devices dating to the Shang dynasty. The oracle bones were animal bones, generally turtle shells and the scapulae of oxen and other animals, into which pits were dug. These pits were heated to produce cracks which were read by diviners, and the date, diviner's name, topics divined, and sometimes answers were then written on and carved into the bones (see image). However, these were merely one of several concurrent media to which characters were applied, and it is only the carved, harder materials which survived. The use of scapulomancy gradually gave way to other forms of divination. By the late Zhou dynasty, surviving examples of writing on bamboo, silk and finally paper appear. Categories: Stub ... Scapulomancy is the practice of divination by writing a question on a bone or a shell, putting it into a fire, and divining the answer by interpreting the cracks that appear in the medium. ... Diversity Around 91 genera and 1,000 species Subtribes Arthrostylidiinae Arundinariinae Bambusinae Chusqueinae Guaduinae Melocanninae Nastinae Racemobambodinae Shibataeinae See the full Taxonomy of the Bambuseae. ... Silk weaver Silk is a natural protein fibre that can be woven into textiles. ... Piece of A4 paper Paper is a thin material produced by the amalgamation of plant fibres, which are subsequently held together without extra binder, largely by hydrogen bonds and to a large degree by fiber entanglement. ...

Replica of ancient Chinese script on a turtle shell oracle bone

Although it would take over a thousand years for uniform, defined forms for each character to appear, now, as then, characters comprise a number of strokes which must be written in a prescribed order. A stroke is a single movement of the writing instrument, in modern times most commonly a pen, pencil, or writing brush. Download high resolution version (422x640, 143 KB)Oracle shell with inscriptions This is a replica of an oracle turtle shell with ancient Chinese oracle scripts inscribed on it. ... Download high resolution version (422x640, 143 KB)Oracle shell with inscriptions This is a replica of an oracle turtle shell with ancient Chinese oracle scripts inscribed on it. ... A ballpoint pen A pen is a writing instrument which applies ink to a surface. ... A selection of coloured pencils. ... Ink brushes (ç­†, in Japanese fude) are speciality brushes used in East Asian calligraphy. ...

Stroke order can therefore refer to the numerical order in which strokes are written, or to the direction in which the writing instrument (brush, pen, or pencil) must move in writing a particular stroke.

The precise number of Chinese characters in existence is disputed. The Japanese "Daikanwa Jiten", a modern comprehensive dictionary of Chinese characters, includes fifty thousand, and more recently published Chinese dictionaries have included more than eighty thousand, although whether these are all unique characters or merely obscure variant forms is debated. Regardless of the total number, literacy in Chinese requires knowledge of three to five thousand characters, and Japanese two to three thousand characters. Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. ...

The number of strokes per character for most characters is between one and thirty, but the number of strokes in some obscure characters can reach as much as seventy. In the twentieth century, drastic simplification of Chinese characters took place in mainland China, greatly reducing the number of strokes in each character, and a similar but more moderate simplification also took place in Japan. However, the basic rules of stroke order remained the same. Taiwan continues to use the unsimplified forms, often called traditional or regular forms. Simplified Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese: 简体字; Traditional Chinese: 簡體字; pinyin: jiǎntǐzì; also called 简化字/簡化字, jiǎnhuàzì) are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ...

Development of rules

Chinese calligrapher Sun Xinde writing in a semi-cursive style using ink and a writing brush.

The rules for stroke order evolved to facilitate vertical writing, to maximize ease of writing and reading, to aid in producing uniform characters, and — since a person who has learned the rules can infer the stroke order of most characters — to ease the process of learning to write. They were also influenced by the highly stylized so-called grass script style, in which each Chinese character is written as a continuous brush stroke. In this style of writing, stroke order is all-important, since a variant of the stroke order creates a completely different visual representation. The present-day rules for stroke order were developed from those used for writing in this so-called "grass script". Image File history File links Download high resolution version (636x976, 100 KB) Description: calligraphy of the Chinese calligrapher Sun Xinde Source: own photography Date: July 2005 Author: --Immanuel Giel 4 July 2005 08:41 (UTC) Other versions: none File links The following pages link to this file: Chinese calligraphy Sun... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (636x976, 100 KB) Description: calligraphy of the Chinese calligrapher Sun Xinde Source: own photography Date: July 2005 Author: --Immanuel Giel 4 July 2005 08:41 (UTC) Other versions: none File links The following pages link to this file: Chinese calligraphy Sun... Chinese calligraphy by Song Dynasty scholar Su Shi. ... Also known as Cursive Calligraphy. ...

While children must learn and use correct stroke order in school, adults may ignore or forget the normalised stroke order for certain characters, or develop idiosyncratic ways of writing. While this is rarely a problem in day-to-day writing, in calligraphy, stroke order is vital; incorrectly ordered or written strokes can produce a visually unappealing or, occasionally, incorrect character. The Eight Principles of Yong (永字八法 Pinyin: yǒngzì bā fǎ; Japanese: eiji happō; Korean: 영자팔법, yeongjapalbeop, yŏngjap'albŏp) uses the single character 永, meaning "eternity", to teach the eight most basic strokes. Calligraphy in a Latin Bible of AD 1407 on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. ... The Eight Principles of Yong (永字八法 Pinyin: YÇ’ngzì Bā FÇŽ; Japanese: えいじはっぽう, Eiji Happō; Korean: 영자팔법. Yeongjapalbeop; Vietnamese: VÄ©nh Tá»± Bát Pháp/ Tám PhÆ°Æ¡ng Pháp về Chữ VÄ©nh) explains how to write the eight strokes common in Chinese characters found all in the one character... Pinyin is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin, where pin means spell and yin means sound. The most common variant of pinyin in use is called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: , Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n), also known as scheme...

Rules

1. Write from left to right, and from top to bottom.

As a general rule, characters are written from left to right, and from top to bottom. For example, among the first characters usually learned is the word "one," which is written with a single horizontal line: 一. This character has one stroke which is written from left to right (see image).

The character for "two" has two strokes: 二. In this case, both are written from left to right, but the top stroke is written first. The character for "three" has three strokes: 三. Each stroke is written from left to right, starting with the uppermost stroke. Image File history File links 一-order. ...

This rule applies also to more complex characters. For example, 校 can be divided into two. The entire left side (木) is written before the right side (交). There are some exceptions to this rule, mainly occurring when the right side of a character has a lower enclosure (see below), for example 誕 and 健. In this case, the left side is written first, followed by the right side, and finally the lower enclosure.

When there are upper and lower components, the upper components are written first, then the lower components, as in 品 and 襲.

2. Horizontal lines are written from left to right; vertical lines are written from top to bottom

3. Horizontal before vertical

When strokes cross, horizontal strokes are usually written before vertical strokes: the character for "ten," 十, has two strokes written as follows: 一 → 十.

4. There are some circumstances where the vertical stroke is written before a horizontal, such as when the character ends in a horizontal stroke at the bottom. E.g., 上 is written 一 then | then _.

The Chinese character meaning "person" (, Chinese: rén, Japanese: hito, nin; jin). The character has two strokes, the first shown here in dark, and the second in red. The black area represents the starting position of the writing instrument.

5. Cutting strokes last Image File history File links 人-red. ... Image File history File links 人-red. ...

Vertical strokes that "cut" through a character are written after the horizontal strokes they cut through, as in 書 and 筆.

Horizontal strokes that cut through a character are written last, as in 母 and 海.

6. Diagonals right-to-left before left-to-right

Right-to-left diagonals (ノ) are written before left-to-right diagonals (乀): 文.

7. Centre verticals before outside "wings"

Vertical centre strokes are written before vertical or diagonal outside strokes; left outside strokes are written before right outside strokes: 小 and 水.

8. Outside before inside

Outside enclosing strokes are written before inside strokes; bottom strokes are written last (see 4): 日 and 口. This applies also to characters that have no bottom stroke, such as 同 and 月.

9. Left vertical before enclosing

Left vertical strokes are written before enclosing strokes. In the following two examples, the leftmost vertical stroke (|) is written first, followed by the uppermost and rightmost lines (┐) (which are written as one stroke): 日 and 口.

10. Bottom enclosing strokes last

Bottom enclosing strokes are always written last: 道, 週, 画.

11. Dots and minor strokes last

Minor strokes are usually written last, as the small "dot" in the following: 玉.

"Fire" (Chinese: huǒ, Japanese: hi, ka) is one of the first characters learned by children. It comprises of four different types of strokes, done in the order of which is shown.
.

Image File history File links 火-red. ... Image File history File links 火-red. ... Image File history File links 火-bw. ...

Types of strokes

There are some thirty distinct types of strokes recognized in Chinese characters, some of them compound strokes. Many of these have no agreed-upon name.

A stroke is defined as everything you do until the rules of calligraphy say you have to lift the pen or brush for the next stroke. The table below contains the various elements that themselves can be a stroke, or can combine to form a compound stroke.

These basic strokes combine to produce all others. The dot, diǎn, is special in that it is rarely a real dot. Instead it is a small stroke pointing in one of several directions. It is often long enough for beginners to confuse it with the nà or piě strokes. Indeed, one can say 長點 cháng diǎn "long diǎn" for such strokes. Similarly, one can qualify the other names, e.g. 短横 duǎn hēng "short héng", or 平捺 píng nà "flat nà".

Zhé and gōu, are particularly important in that they never occur alone, but always form combinations.

For example, a 豎折 shùzhé goes down(Ê), then turns rightwards into a horizontal stroke. A 横折 héngzhé(Í) goes right, then turns downwards into a vertical stroke. In other words, in those examples a zhé is a ninety-degree turn from a hēng into a shù or vice-versa.

A 横鉤 hénggōu goes right, then hooks back down. A 豎鉤 shùgōu goes down, then hooks back to the left, thus: 亅.

The wān and xié strokes are usually found in combination with a hook. A 斜鉤xiégōu goes down before slanting away to the right and ending with a hook. A 彎鉤 wāngōu bends out before coming up with a hook towards the concave part to the left. However, a 豎彎鉤 shùwāngōu is a straight line down that bends into a flat line going rightwards before ending with a hook; this is also known 卧鉤 wògōu "crouch then hook" or 平鉤 pínggōu "flat then hook".

Unicode

The Unicode "CJK Strokes" range encodes 16 basic strokes, at codepoints U+31C0–31CF (as of Unicode version 4.1): Because of technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... CJK is a collective term for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which comprise the main East Asian languages. ...

References

• Hadamitzky, Wolfgang & Mark Spahn. A Handbook of the Japanese Writing System. Charles E. Tuttle Co. ISBN 0-8048-2077-5.
• Henshall, Kenneth G. A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters. Charles E. Tuttle Co. ISBN 0-8048-2038-4.
• Keightley, David N. (1978). Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 052002969
• O'Neill, P.G. Essential Kanji: 2,000 Basic Japanese Characters Systematically Arranged for Learning and Reference. Weatherhill. ISBN 0-8348-0222-8.
• Pye, Michael The Study of Kanji: A Handbook of Japanese Characters. Hokuseido Press.
  • Includes a translation of the Japanese Ministry of Education rules on Kanji stroke order.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

CJK stroke order

• Chinese character
• East Asian calligraphy
• Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts

Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... Wikimedia Commons logo by Reid Beels The Wikimedia Commons (also called Commons or Wikicommons) is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. ... 漢字 / 汉字 Chinese character in Hànzì, kanji, hanja. ... The word calligraphy means good writing. The art of calligraphy is widely practiced and revered in the East Asian civilizations that uses Chinese characters. ... Chinese calligraphy by Song Dynasty scholar Su Shi. ...

External links

• Animated stroke order from USC Chinese Department
• Learn Chinese and Chinese radicals
• Kanji alive, an interactive online tool for learning Japanese kanji, featuring stroke order animations.
• cchar.com Online query of stroke order animations.
• SODER Project, lets you even download Japanese kanji stroke order diagrams.